Happy Muslim Mama: Little Lady and Make-Up

One of many things I and Little Lady have in common is our love of make-up and out inability to apply it very expertly. Little Lady is 11 now and people might think that is way too young for her to be interested in make-up. I have a friend who complained about her daughter’s interest in cosmetics at about the same age. Her daughter was naturally beautiful and very tall for her age and my friend decided that she didn’t want her wearing make-up at all. Instead her daughter was sneaking opportunities to wear make-up and wearing it in a very grown up way. As my friend put it, she looked ridiculous being caught with blue eye shadow and bright red lips.
In contrast Little Lady has had some form of make-up or toiletry to play around with since she was quite small. My mum used to let her have the flat stubs at the end of her Clinique and Estee Lauder lipsticks and the sample size little perfumes she used to get. I don’t much recall her using any of them, but happily collecting her little stash in one of her little purses. I do remember the time she got into my handbag and smeared dark lipstick over her face and wiped thick black kohl all around her eyes. She was quite impressed with her handiwork.

Little Lady’s current lip-balm and lip gloss collection – which actually never gets used

When I was a young teenager, my mum never stopped us from trying out her make-up if there was an occasion: Eid or a wedding. Admittedly this consisted of a slick of pink or red lipstick and more of the same dotted onto our cheeks and rubbed around with our fingers. Family weddings in Pakistan were extra special so my mum’s giant kit with 100 eye colours was cracked open and everyone is sight went to town applying it everywhere they could think of (eyes, cheeks, who knows where else). Being the early 90’s in Pakistan, this was then covered with a layer of glitter (everywhere else did this in the 80’s, but we seemed to be ten years behind).

We grew up watching this lady (Anjuman) in Pakistani films (image source) You would think that having been exposed to such things at a young age, I would be expert at applying the stuff by now and wear tons of it. The reality is quite the opposite. I wear kohl because it is sunnah and over the years I have found that it prevents eye infections. Occasionally I wear nude or natural looking lipstick. Much as I love mascara and blush (which I am always too liberal with, so better off avoiding), I don’t wear them because of the inconvenience of having to remove every time I make wudhu (ablutions for prayer). My only exception on a special occasions is my lipstick. I clearly remember my mum explaining to me that good girls wear light coloured lipstick, mainly brown, but never dark red. Clearly her advice didn’t stick, because my signature colour for special occasions is a dark, gothic, red, usually with a bit of black eyeliner mixed in for good measure. Don’t worry it’s more this:

image source

Okay so maybe not as good as the first one, more like somewhere in between. Now that Little Lady really is becoming a young lady, I have noticed her interest in make-up. Rather than ban it completely, I have decided to guide her towards things that are appropriate for her age and subtle. So she is allowed tinted lip balm from the Body Shop and on special occasions like the party we threw her when she finished Quran she was allowed to try my lip gloss and blush (I think I was probably too liberal with it again) and wear nail varnish. She prays her five daily prayers now so nail varnish’s are a bit of a thing of the past now (you can’t make wudhu with nail varnish on), but as a treat for a few hours was okay.I have had to be a bit firmer with some things, on a few occasions, she invited the neighbours daughter around (a year older than her) to for her make-up. We had various variations of blue eye-shadows and pearly pink lipstick and some funky hairstyles. She couldn’t see why I thought she should wash them off, but had to. On another occasion she get her make-up done by her artist-next-door especially for her school party the night before. I had to convince her that she would ruin her skin and couldn’t sleep with it on. The next morning I let her borrow a light lip gloss. This was enough to bring out our resident haram police, my son Gorgeous, who declared it was haram for women to leave the house with make-up. We both just ignored him.Now that both Little Lady and her artistic neighbour are a bit older, they seem to think that blue eye-shadow is rubbish (thankfully) and are both too busy for make-up sessions. Instead I am trying to get Little Lady to focus on the importance of taking care of her skin. One reason I don’t wear make-up is because I think it is important to be grateful for what Allah (SWT) has given you and to take care of what you have. So rather than plaster make-up across your face to create an illusion of youth and good skin, I would prefer to teach her to do the things she needs to have healthy, glowing skin: drink water, eat well, clean her skin gently and use natural products when she needs to (she has sensitive, slightly dry skin).Another reason I don’t wear make-up is because I find when you wear it every day, you feel unattractive without it. I used to wear mascara every day until I started praying at work and had to make wudhu there. At first I felt horrible, eventually I learned to love my face as it is and be happy with it in it’s natural state. I want the same for my daughter, to be grateful with and confident in what she naturally has and not feel a need to try and hide or improve what Allah (SWT) had made perfect already alhamdulillah.

So regarding make-up and eleven year olds, I am not banning make-up outright. I would rather guide her on what is appropriate and for us to deal with this issue openly, than her sneaking lipsticks to high school. I also think we should not take it too seriously and let it be a source of fun for our own girly time at home or for when we throw girly parties. I’m sure Gorgeous will put us straight if we overstep the mark anyway.